The Summer the World Ended

by Matthew S. Cox

  She looked up, squinting past sun glare on some cars parked by Tommy’s Restaurant a little more than a football field’s distance away. At Perkins, Amber had suggested Riley move in with them. She’d still be in familiar surroundings, with familiar people, going to the school she’d been alternately looking forward to and dreading. A fair number of her classmates who teased her for being ‘too thin’ would have stayed with her. The extra pressure of having them hound her in high school on top of losing Mom would have sucked.

  On the other hand, with ninth grade came more freedom. She was supposed to be looking forward to staying up late, getting a job, and having money of her own, but all she wanted to do was crawl home and cling to her mother. Amber’s offer, unrealistic as it was, had been tempting. It would’ve been a huge thing to ask of her parents, something they probably would’ve declined as gently as possible. Of course, with Dad already back in the picture, she couldn’t have accepted anyway. Quirky as he was, he did love her, and she couldn’t turn her back on him.

  Well I suppose I can just walk in.

  Riley looked both ways before stepping onto the road and hurrying across. She caught a glimpse of the skinny biker in front of the mechanic shop, unpacking a number of small metal cases from the trunk of a battered car that looked like it cost less than the equipment it carried. Riley looked away and scurried across the parking lot in a shuffling drag-step intended to move fast without losing her flops.

  The smell of cooking meat and Mexican seasonings surrounded Tommy’s bar, stirring a growl in her belly even though she’d had breakfast a little over an hour ago. Old license plates clattered against the door when she pushed it open. A twinge of worry caught her when the man behind the bar cocked his eyebrow at her. Would he throw her out for being too young to enter a place that sold booze?

  “Hey, Riley.” Kieran waved her over from a backwards chair by a round table in the corner opposite the bar.

  Four other teens―a girl and three boys―looked up to check out the new arrival. The girl had a soft, rounded face, skin a bit lighter than Kieran, and long, dark hair. Riley figured her for seventeen at least. She leaned out of her chair to the left. Her posture teetered on the verge of giving the room a peek under her short camouflage skirt, and thrust her breasts through a tight grey tank top. She afforded Riley only a brief glance before returning her attention to a boy who looked like a senior, or perhaps a year graduated, kissing him as if they were the only two in the room.

  Of the group, he seemed to be another outsider, white as a sheet with freckles and unruly brown curls. He adhered to the local uniform code, a plain white tee and jeans with work boots, and paid little attention to her.

  Next to the pair sucking face, another older boy with bright green hair and a goatee busied himself with a small sheet of paper and green flakes of chopped leaves. His ribs poked out of the bottom of a black half-shirt covered by a mesh top. Metal studs glinted from his earlobes, and two small chrome cones stuck to his chin a quarter inch below the corners of his mouth. He looked up at Riley, flashed a dazed smile, and resumed rolling his joint.

  Riley stared at it. That’s not oregano. Holy shit!

  The youngest of the lot clutched a beat-up video game and had wide cheeks and a short, dense mop of hair that made his head look spherical. She took him for twelve if that. He too wore a white t-shirt and jeans, though no shoes.

  She walked over to Kieran, staring at the boy with drugs out in plain sight.

  “Hey guys, this is Riley.” Kieran gestured at her. “She’s the new girl I was talking about.”

  The lovebirds broke lip lock long enough to say, “Hey” and “‘Sup.”

  “Riley, this is Jesse.” Kieran indicated the small boy. “You can call him El Bicho if you want.”

  “Pendejo.” Jesse seemed to like that about as much as she liked Squirrel. “I ain’t no little kid. I’m gonna be in high school next year.”

  “You’re fourteen?” Riley blurted. “Uh…”

  The other girl laughed.

  “Thirteen.” Jesse puffed out his chest.

  “He looks like he’s nine, doesn’t he?” cooed the girl. “He’s adorable.”

  “Adorable gonna get his ass kicked next year,” said the kid with the metal on his lip.

  The older girl squirmed about to keep talking through her boyfriend’s attempt to jam his tongue in her mouth. “Oh, I won’t call him that at school.”

  Kieran looked at the bar as the man behind it yelled for him. “Uh, sec. That’s Lyle”―he gestured at the white boy―“that’s Luis”―he pointed at the one with green hair―“and Camila. Be right back.”

  She stood in awkward silence. Her only link to these people jogged across the room leaving Lyle and Camila exploring each other’s tonsils and Luis finishing his engineering project. At last, he held up a homemade cigarette.

  “Is that…” Riley fidgeted.

  “Weed?” asked Jesse. “Yeah, he smokes so much his hair turned green.”

  “But isn’t it? Like, um…” Riley blinked.

  “It’s legal in Colorado,” mumbled Luis.

  “Yeah, man, but this ain’t Colorado.” Lyle yawned, and flashed a weary smile at Riley. “Luis here thinks he’s some kinda celebrity since he’s played two live shows in T or C.”

  “Three.” Luis held up four fingers.

  “Your cousin’s garage don’t count,” said Camila. She crawled into Lyle’s lap and nodded at her chair. “Go on, sit. Don’t stand there like a post.”

  Post? Is she calling me too thin?

  “Probably weird like her old man,” said Luis.

  Riley accepted the seat, even though she didn’t much want to. “Dad’s not weird, he’s just… private.”

  “He’s one of them doomsday prepper dudes,” said Luis. “Ready for the end of the world.”

  “I heard ‘em sayin’ he’s got a nuke bunker.” Pure adoration lit Jesse’s eyes. “That’s so cool! I wanna see it. Probably packed it full of guns and missiles and food and water and stuff.”

  “It’s always the antisocial ones.” Lyle shifted Camila in his lap so she had her back against his chest, threaded his arms around her waist and clasped his wrist. “Heard some people say he’s got bodies in his basement.”

  “The house doesn’t have a basement.” Riley felt her cheeks getting hot. “He just lives alone. Why does everyone think he’s strange?”

  “Because there’s nothing else to do in this town but drink beer, have sex, and get high.” Camila shrugged. “Your old man doesn’t do any of that, so he stands out. Dude barely goes outside.”

  Riley slumped in her chair. “I guess I’m gonna stand out too then.”

  “Whadda you do for fun?” asked Jesse.

  “I used to play Xbox a lot.” I should’ve spent more time with Mom. Riley glanced over her shoulder at the bar. Seeing no trace of Kieran in the room filled her with a mild panic. “Not so much now.”

  “I like to play with an X-box too,” said Lyle, sliding his hand between Camila’s legs.

  “Hey!” She grabbed his arm and elbowed him in the gut. “Behave. Not here.”

  Jesse stuck his tongue out in a gagging gesture. Luis didn’t react at all, still gazing upon his unsmoked joint as if he held Excalibur, freed from the stone.

  “Never heard of no ex-box before,” said Luis. “That like one of them used-to-be-a-girls?”

  “It’s a video game, dumbass,” said Jesse.

  A squeak made Riley look back. Kieran entered through a battered wooden door that flapped back and forth like something from an old saloon. He balanced a large tray half on his shoulder and carried a mass of plates to a table crowded by a family of eight. She watched him hand out food, somehow managing to keep his hair out of the way and not drop anything at the same time.

  Jersey’d have fined the hell out of this place for letting him have his hair loose.

  Her slow rotation to sit forward paused as her gaze swept past the bar. A TV mounted on the w
all showed a news broadcast, muted but with closed-caption text flashing on the bottom.

  “…since talks with the North Koreans have ultimately proved unsuccessful. Our Washington correspondent reports diplomatic entreaties are disintegrating as the insular nation has promised to stand with Russia should the United States involve itself in the Ukraine situation.”

  She clutched the seatback, hoping Dad’s ‘assets’ would find a way to cool things off. The screen switched to an image of a Korean man in a military uniform standing behind a podium.

  “So, is your Dad as weird as everyone says?” asked Camila.

  Riley squirmed around to face the table and shrugged one shoulder. “He’s a Dad. Of course he’s weird. I dunno. No weirder than normal.”

  Kieran returned, dragging a stray chair over to sit. “So, what’d I miss?”

  “This is perfection,” said Luis. “Best one I’ve ever rolled. You guys gonna come to the thing Friday? Black Chakra’s playin’ at a thing.”

  “Can you vague that up a little more?” Lyle smirked.

  “What’s that?” asked Riley.

  Kieran leaned closer. “He’s in a band. They play death metal with Buddhist overtones.”

  Riley tried to make a face like she knew what he meant. “Uh… Okay.”

  She couldn’t imagine what something like that would sound like. Tension grabbed her limbs. Bad enough she’d gone out in public―that in and of itself proved she was not in her right mind and desperate for… something. Even in the comfort of her previous normal life, leaving the safety of her bedroom didn’t happen often. Now, there was a boy leaning close to her. A boy with silky black hair, high cheekbones, and deep brown eyes.

  Her fingers kneaded at the pleats of her babydoll shirt, her spine taut like an iron rod.

  Jesse looked up from his handheld. “Kieran, we still goin’ to the Invaders game?”

  “Yeah.” Kieran grinned, ruffling the boy’s hair.

  “Stop.” Jesse tried to punch him in the leg, but Kieran evaded. “I ain’t no damn kid.”

  His three older friends got into a debate about music, discussing bands Riley had never heard of. Kieran drifted back and forth from his work duties, hanging out at the table with his friends as much as he could without being too rude to the customers. She felt like a fifth wheel, remaining quiet, teetering between regret at bothering and curiosity about Kieran. The lure of her bedroom called, a safe place where no one could make fun of her.

  Is this the group I’m going to spend the next four years with? She stole a glance at Lyle and Camila, who made little effort to hide their roaming hands. Watching them was almost as embarrassing as Dad bringing up condoms. No, they’re gonna be seniors. They’ll be outta here. Anyone with a brain would get outta here. She exhaled too quiet to be noticed. Luis… he’s graduated already or dropped out. She shot an uneasy look at the marijuana twirling between his fingers. Rather than revulsion, curiosity, or temptation, it made her think of the paunchy cop who’d come to speak to her class in seventh grade about drugs. That, in turn, made her remember her old life. She never really liked school, but at that moment, she’d have given anything to go back to that moment.

  Kieran came by with a chicken burrito. “Hungry?”

  She looked at it and grasped the front of her throat, choked up from her last mental wandering. Unable to speak, she nodded. He left it in front of her and jogged off. She pulled the ten out and held it up when he returned with silverware and a cup of ice water.

  He closed her fingers into a fist clutching the bill. “Not necessary.”

  Riley stared at the hand around hers, the color of saddle leather. He’s touching me. “Uhm.”

  “Really, it’s okay. Mom always gives the extra to my friends.”

  “Means nobody wanted it,” said Lyle.

  Luis chuckled. “Smells good to me.”

  “It’s not a sendback.” Kieran let go of her hand. “She makes the insides in a huge batch, there’s a lot.”

  “Thanks.” Riley put the money in her pocket.

  Jesse shot a longing stare at the food. She hesitated at the sight of his frayed jeans, wondering if going barefoot had been by choice or poverty. The way all the buildings here looked, she figured on poverty.

  Riley nudged the plate toward the small boy. “Want half?”

  “How are you not sick of this stuff?” asked Camila. “You eat the same damn thing every day.”

  Jesse shrugged.

  Kieran nudged Riley’s arm with an elbow. “Mom’s putting his together now. She can’t resist that face he makes either.”

  Eating proved to be a welcome distraction from the kids she wasn’t yet sure about. Jesse seemed harmless and ‘normal’ enough, though the idea he was a freshman like her didn’t sit right in her head. He looked like a sixth or seventh grader. Camila’s initial sense of territorial challenge faded once she’d gotten a good look at Riley. It didn’t hurt that Lyle had barely given her a second glance.

  She speared a bit of the burrito and swabbed sauce off the plate with it. Ambivalence fit. Riley didn’t much care if she became friends with them or not. Luis lived on another planet. The others didn’t even seem to really hang out with him as much as occupy the same table. Maybe they tolerated him on the off chance his band got somewhere and they could claim to know a famous person.

  An hour passed of feeble attempts at becoming part of the crew by throwing out a reference to Call of Duty here or World of Warcraft there. Riley gave up, convinced these people didn’t know much about any of the things she liked. She considered bringing up Lord of the Rings or a handful of other fantasy books she’d read, but what was the point of being in a one-sided conversation?

  I could talk to myself at home. These people don’t even know what Hogwarts is.

  Having lost any expectation of being welcomed by this group, she shifted in her chair and cast a forlorn stare over the barroom. A five or six year old boy at the party of eight table stuck his tongue out at her. Two cowboys that looked like retired Marlboro men ignored her. Kieran was off tending to three tables full of men in tool belts and hard hats bearing PNM logos. Three seconds before she decided to ask for a phone to call Dad, a minor miracle came in the form of an old Roadblasters arcade machine in the opposite corner by the front wall. She scooted away from the group and trudged over to it. A demo routine ran in a loop. She almost laughed at the primitive graphics, but it was better than nothing. Her momentary enthusiasm faded when a pat-down found no change. She jabbed a finger at the start button as a gesture of annoyance before walking away, and squeaked in shock when the game started up despite the lack of payment.

  A blocky car with a huge gun on the roof… okay.

  She got used to the controls pretty quick, a steering wheel with buttons and a metal gas pedal in the front of the cabinet. The fire button had seen a lot of abuse and worked only half the time. Her fourth attempt lasted a decent while before the dreaded ‘Game Over’ flashed. As soon as it did, Kieran nudged her.

  “Hey.”

  She teased the start button with one finger, not pushing it. “Hey.”

  “I know what you mean,” he whispered.

  “Huh?”

  He leaned his back against the machine. He’s so close. Riley’s gaze shifted from the console to where their left arms touched. “We moved here five years ago from Albuquerque. Dad was the manager of a bar there, and Mom worked in the kitchen of this little family restaurant. I was more a computer game type, like my older brother.” He chuckled. “Course, moving out here… Wound up getting that car and it ate all my time.”

  Standing that close to him felt half like she was doing something she’d get in trouble for and half like this town might not be the most horrible place on Earth. Riley forced herself not to look up at his face, and poked the start button. The chintzy graphics reset, and her little car zoomed onward. “Why’d you move to this place?”

  “Dad won a little Powerball, maybe forty grand. He decided his dream
was to run his own tap house, and found this building cheap. As a bar, it did okay, but once Mom and Aunt Dakota came on board, it got better.”

  “Cool.” She swerved around a land mine and shot down a flyer. “This game is older than I am.”

  “You’re pretty good at it.” He put an arm up on top of the cabinet as he faced her.

  She pressed herself into the machine, not sure how she felt about being squeezed between him and an arcade game. He was exotic looking, tall, probably strong, and nothing like anyone she’d ever met. However, Riley was Riley. Four foot ten, maybe eighty-five pounds, flat as a plank. Yeah, a boy would look at me twice. She drove more aggressively, taking a few risks that paid off. This is Robbie Zimmer all over again. He’s setting me up as a joke for his friends.

  Another risky move didn’t work out: Game Over.

  “Not that good.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. A few minutes past four. Two hours. “I gotta go. Dad wants me home before dark.”

  The bartender, the man she knew now as Kieran’s father, made an annoying clicking sound. The PNM workers were all looking at them. Oh, great. She wanted to climb inside the arcade machine and disappear.

  “Hang on.” He flashed a mischievous smile and hurried over to the workers.

  Riley frowned at the ancient technology and trudged back to the table where Camila tried to convince Lyle to take her somewhere ‘less lame.’ He did not seem too interested in going to T or C, and the prospect of a drive to Albuquerque elicited an even stronger frown.

  Riley took the open seat, and slouched. “Where’s Jesse?”

  “His mom called him home. He lives next door,” said Camila. “Come on, Lyle. Let’s hit a club or something.”

  “I ain’t drivin’ two hours to drink. You can get beer here.”

  Camila thrust out her lower lip and fluttered her eyelashes.

  Lyle sighed. “Fine.”

  The lovebirds walked away, lingering for a brief conversation with Kieran in the middle of the room before heading out the door. Alone with Luis. Riley didn’t like the way he looked at her, as if trying to imagine her shirt gone. She found a little comfort in the stoned look on his face. It seemed like decent odds he lacked the coordination to pose a real threat.